Sunday, September 13, 2015

William “Dub”
Lawrence is the former sheriff of Davis County, Utah where he created
and trained the state's very first SWAT team several decades ago.
However, he came to regret having ever founded that tactical unit in
September of 2008 when the police were summoned by his daughter
because her husband had suffered an emotional breakdown.

Brian had
barricaded himself in his pickup truck where he threatened to commit
suicide while holding a gun to his head. Instead of defusing the
volatile situation, the SWAT team proceeded to ratchet up the
tension, ultimately ending the standoff by emptying 111 rounds into
the vehicle, a lethal mix of of live ammo, flash-bomb grenades,
pepper balls, rubber bullets, tasers and explosive devices.

Dub partially
blames himself for his son-in-law's unnecessary death, because he'd
helped enforce the commanding officer's order that his daughter and
Brian's parents vacate the area, thereby abandoning their loved one
in an hour of need. Leaving it up to the first responders proved
disastrous, since they failed to follow proper protocol, going so far
as to shoot Brian in the head after he was already disarmed and lying
defenseless in the street.

This and other
similar cases of overzealous policing on the part of SWAT teams is
the subject of Peace Officer, a timely documentary co-directed by
Scott Christopherson and Brad Barber. For, never before in American
history have cops been so distrusted and/or disliked by such a large
percentage of the citizenry.

Most notably,
there's the Black Lives Matter movement which refuses to apologize
for employing such hateful chants during demonstrations as: “Pigs
in a blanket, fry 'em up like bacon!” and “What do we want? Dead
cops! When do we want 'em? Now!” Consequently, attacks on law
enforcement officers have become so commonplace that they're now
being murdered at the rate of about one a week.

How do you
explain such a frightening breakdown of the culture? Well, this
thought-provoking expose' blames the country's increasingly
militaristic approach to policing. Dub, who serves as the film's
narrator, laments the fact that “Most people no longer see police
as protectors, but as violators of their liberty.” He also harks
back to a time when a patrolman's job description call for his
primarily serving the community as a peacemaker.

Sadly, that
lofty ideal is long gone, having been replaced by the self-serving,
“us” vs. “them” notion as reflected by the blue wall of
silence and the immunity from prosecution which “allows cops to
break the law with impunity.” A recipe for civil insurrection which
we've all been witnessing.

Thus, Peace
Officer proves to be the cinematic equivalent of a canary in the coal
mine, as it issues a dire warning to the government to get SWAT
teams under control before either the people revolt or the U.S. turns
into a Fascistic police state.

Opening
on Wednesday, September 16th at the IFC Center
in New York CityOpening on Friday, September 18th
at the Nuart Theater in Los Angeles Opening
on Friday, September 25th
in the following cities:San
Francisco - Opera Plaza Salt Lake City, UT
- Tower Theater

No comments:

Subscribe via email

Subscribe via RSS

The Sly Fox Film Reviews

KamWilliams.com

The Sly Fox Film Reviews publishes the content of film critic Kam Williams. Voted Most Outstanding Journalist of the Decade by the Disilgold Soul Literary Review in 2008, Kam Williams is a syndicated film and book critic who writes for 100+ publications around the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa, Canada and the Caribbean. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Online, the NAACP Image Awards Nominating Committee and Rotten Tomatoes.

In addition to a BA in Black Studies from Cornell, he has an MA in English from Brown, an MBA from The Wharton School, and a JD from Boston University. Kam lives in Princeton, NJ with his wife and son.